Well, we decided to limit our ten day trip to only Madrid and Barcelona rather than exploring some new places for two reasons. In Madrid, we wanted to see some concerts, and we had friends in Barcelona we wanted to visit.

Our Iberia flight to Barcelona was delayed by an hour due to traffic congestion, but that just meant our hostal room would be ready upon our arrival. We were dismayed to find out that our Hostal (Hostal Rembrandt, calle Porteferrisa) was on a pedestrian walkway, so we had to lug our considerable baggage a short distance from Las Ramblas. It wasn't really that far. We had lunch at the vegetarian restaurant / juice bar Juicy Jones (on Cardenal Casañas, near the metro stop Liceu). The menu was Asian-style with lots of different things in little bowls, but it wasn't quite enough food. Soon we called our friends Jesus and Celia, and Jesus came from outside Barcelona to pick us up.

My wife Ale met these people when Celia sent a message to someone she had met in a chat, and it went to my wife's email address instead. Celia's message mentioned Barcelona, so my wife answered it with a question about the city. We ended up conversing with them via email for three months before our trip, and they turned out to be even nicer in person. We met Jesus at the end of Las Ramblas, but he was late because the police had cut off traffic and he was unable to turn to pick us up. He finally arrived and took us to surprise Celia in the supermarket where she works. They both live outside of Barcelona in the small beach towns of Castelldefels and Gavá. They took us to a local restaurant called Las Delicias for a late dinner. Later we made stops at a cold beach and a small park where we chatted late into the night.

On Friday, we had some more walking tours of Barcelona and had an excellent inexpensive lunch at the Italian restaurant Il Mercante de Venezia (C. Joan Anselmo Clave, 11), near the sea-end of Las Ramblas. This restaurant has a truly romantic atmosphere. Later we met Jesus and he took us around Montjuic and showed us the fountains in front of the Palacio de Musica. Dinner was chinese food (much different in Spain) at Jesus's apartment.

Saturday would be a day for touring, but unfortunately it rained much of the morning. It was the first rain we'd experienced on our trip. Jesus and Celia had never been inside the Sagrada Familia, so we went there in the rain and climbed the towers to the top (the elevator was not running). We were all (our friends included) amazed at how beautiful it was. We had a great lunch at a nearby restaurant (no idea on the name), and then the sun came out. Fideu de Mariscos is an excellent dish of noodles and seafood. Jesus had to take Celia to work, but he dropped us off near Parque Guell. The glistening wet ground and trees gave a fresh dawn-like feeling to the park Gaudi designed. We wandered around the park, and could see the ocean in the distance. We were in a place with lots of small rock benches and an old man came up to his and told us it was the "Puente de los Enamorados", the lover's bridge and that as a young man (before there were so many tourists), he used to bring his sweetheart there for a good time. Our friends had never been to the Parque Guell, either so we promised to take them there on our next trip.

Saturday night we met two more people who knew me from a message board (not this one ) and one of them invited the four of us to his nearby apartment for a small dinner. Of course, we expected to meet them in a restaurant, and they didn't know we were vegetarians. Still, there was excellent food there we could eat. It's our first time in Spain as vegetarians (we do eat fish and dairy). It was not easy to resist the Jamon Serrano they had laid out for us. At the very elegant dinner, we had pan con tomate (a Catalan specialty), cheese, salad, and smoked salmon along with good wine and Cava. Later we took a taxi to a bar in Tibidabo, a mountain overlooking Barcelona. From there we could see all of Barcelona laid out before us.

Sunday we were invited to Christmas Dinner with Jesus's family. We were nervous about what we would eat as vegetarians and about how to dress. It turns out we were dressed fine, even perhaps overdressed. The family could not have received us better. And they prepared mostly seafood for us, a great feast of octopus, eel, shellfish, shrimp, and one dish that had meat. I hope they didn't change their menu just for us; Jesus assured us that Christmas Dinner with seafood was common in Catalunya. The family had four-year old Rafael and he banged on a decorated log to summon his presents and kept asking about Papa Noel. Well after we had eaten, a knock was heard and Papa Noel himself came in his red suit with a bag full of toys. Papa Noel handed a big box to an overjoyed Rafael that contained the Vuelta del Ciclista set that he had asked for. He then proceeded to hand out presents to everyone at the table, including an Alejandro Sanz cd for us. Santa left, and a few moments later the young boy's uncle arrived.

We clicked so well with our new friends, and we were very sad to leave on Christmas Day. We invited them to New York, and we can only hope to show them half of the hospitality they showed us. They took us to the airport Monday morning. It's great to travel on a holiday because the airports were so empty. We had a pleasant Iberia flight, and returned to celebrate Christmas on two continents.

Eight Earrings:

One of them (can't remember the name) had a green sign for "comida macrobiotica" and was a block south of calle de las Huertas a few streets away from Hostal Lopez. The other is Artemisa which has two locations (one between Preciados and calle Montera at Tres Cruces off the Plaza del Carmen, the other on Ventura de la Vega off of San Jeronimo). On another trip we went to El Estragon (Pl de la Paja, M: La Latina, mentioned elsewhere on this site.

I would recommend both of our hostals: Hostal Lopez in Madrid, and Hostal Rembrandt in Barcelona.